Microsoft Outage LIVE: Microsoft extends mail timeout to 48 hours as outage hits governments, organisations worldwide

A widespread outage hit Microsoft platforms, including Outlook, on Thursday (November 12, 2026), with many users encountering trouble using their email accounts and other errors across the tech giant’s suite of apps. Also read | Job cuts, retirement plan, voluntary exits: What’s going on at Microsoft?

Nearly 1,30,000 users on outage tracker Downdetector reported problems accessing Outlook just after 1 pm local time. New reports have since fallen from that peak, but many said they couldn’t send and receive emails or had trouble loading their inboxes altogether.

Thousands also reported issues with Microsoft’s workplace messaging app Teams, as well as its AI assistant Copilot and wider Microsoft 365 services. Microsoft said it was investigating disruptions, notably related to its email and Teams applications.

The story so far: Software giant Microsoft is facing a widespread outage affecting users of its Outlook email service, as well as its other workplace products. Thousands of Microsoft users in India awakened on Friday (November 13, 2026) to find their inboxes inaccessible, losing hours of productivity.

According to DownDetector, over 100,000 users had initially registered complaints about Microsoft Outlook.​Microsoft Outage: Why did Microsoft Outlook and other products go offline globally?Microsoft shared on X on November 13 that a portion of infrastructure was experiencing elevated load across multiple regions, and this could likely be contributing to the connectivity errors.

European stock market operator Euronext advised listed companies on Friday (November 13, 2026) morning to ‌use the telephone to communicate corporate information after ⁠an outage in Microsoft’s Outlook email service. “Euronext Corporate Actions and Listing ‌teams are currently experiencing an email communication ‌disruption and are unable to ‌receive ⁠emails,” the company, which ⁠runs exchanges in Paris, Brussels, Lisbon, Amsterdam, Oslo, Athens and Milan, said in a ‌corporate filing.

“For urgent matters relating to suspensions, corporate actions management, Oslo major shareholding ‌notifications, MyEuronext or Newspoint, issuers and their agents are advised to contact the ⁠relevant Exchange Operator by telephone,” it added.

The company ‌advised MyEuronext users to call through mobile phones and use two-factor authentication. Euronext did not say how it would guarantee ‌safe identification of other callers. The U.K.’s National Health Service (NHS) is facing issues with emails due to the Microsoft outage, reports The Guardian.

Earlier, NHS England signed a major five-year deal to use Microsoft 365. Doctors are trying to keep things running as normal. “We’re seeing early stabilization and capacity improvements as recovery actions continue. To help preserve delayed mail during this event, we’ve extended email timeout to 48 hours,” Microsoft posted on X.

“When essential tools become unavailable, employees naturally look for ways to keep working,” Ben Mudie, field CTO of APAC Tenable, said. “The security risk is that temporary workarounds, such as personal email accounts or unapproved file-sharing services, can move sensitive business information beyond an organisation’s visibility and control.

Disruption can also create opportunities for impersonation. An urgent request arriving through an unfamiliar channel, or a message offering to restore access, deserves extra scrutiny.” He said that an outage alone does not establish that a cyberattack has occurred.

“But it does underline why business continuity and cybersecurity need to work together. Employees need clear, approved alternatives so they can remain productive without exposing company data or bypassing security checks,” he said.

“We’re seeing positive results for service stability and increased capacity as a result of our latest traffic optimization actions. We’re implementing these actions more broadly across affected regions as we seek to attain persistent recovery.

A more comprehensive update can be found at MO1550821 in the Microsoft 365 admin centre, as well as http://status.cloud.microsoft if the admin centre is not available to you,” the company said in a statement. From Asia to the U.S., Microsoft’s outage involving services like Outlook and Teams has dragged on for hours and impacted many users, companies and some government operations as the technology giant struggled with fixing the issue.

More than 1,30,000 users on outage tracker Downdetector reported problems accessing Outlook earlier on Thursday although new reports have since fallen from that peak.